ABOUT
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF COMPOSERS, AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS (ASCAP) (from http://www.ascap.com)
ASCAP is a membership association of more than 120,000
U.S. composers, songwriters and publishers of every kind of music and hundreds
of thousands worldwide. ASCAP is the only U.S. performing rights organization
created and controlled by composers, songwriters and music publishers, with a
Board of Directors elected by and from the membership.
ASCAP protects the rights of its members by licensing
and distributing royalties for the non-dramatic public performances of their
copyrighted works. ASCAP's licensees encompass all who want to perform
copyrighted music publicly. ASCAP makes giving and obtaining permission to
perform music simple for both creators and users of music.
HOW YOU GET PAID AT ASCAP
ASCAP receives payment for public performances of songs
and compositions by negotiating license fees with the users of music (radio,
TV, cable, bars, clubs, restaurants, shopping malls, concert halls, web sites,
airlines, orchestras, etc.) and distributing these monies to members whose
works were performed.
ASCAP pays directly and fairly. ASCAP is guided by a
"follow the dollar" principle in the design of its payment system. In
other words, the money collected from television stations is paid out to
members for performances of their works on television; the money collected from
radio stations is paid out for radio performances, and so on. ASCAP tracks
music use on these and other media and live venues to determine which music has
been performed, and the appropriate writers and publishers to be paid.
The value of each performance is determined by several
factors, among them the amount of license fees collected in a medium
(television, cable, radio, etc.), the type of performance (visual vocal,
background music, theme song, jingle, etc.) and the economic significance of
the licensee (how much a station pays us).
There are billions of performances licensed by ASCAP
each year. ASCAP is committed to paying our members for these performances
fairly, accurately and efficiently. ASCAP collects and distributes more money
in performance royalty income than any other organization and our payment
system is by far the fairest and most objective in the U.S.
Because ASCAP is owned and governed by its members, we
have a strong commitment to maximizing payments to members. In most situations,
you will find that ASCAP pays more than our competitors over the life of a
copyright.
WHO DOES ASCAP COLLECT FROM?
Once you've registered your works with ASCAP, they
become part of the ASCAP repertory for which we collect performance royalties.
We do this by negotiating with and collecting license fees from the users of
music - our customers - who perform the works in our repertory.
Most customers pay ASCAP an annual blanket license fee
for the right to use any music in the ASCAP repertory. Some local radio and
television stations opt for a per program license, under which they only pay
ASCAP for programs containing ASCAP music not otherwise licensed. Every penny
we collect, less operating expenses, is distributed to our members whose works
were performed.
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Each year, there are billions of performances of
ASCAP music in the hundred thousand or more broadcast and live venues we
license throughout the country. Whenever it is economically sensible, ASCAP
will conduct a census survey, or
complete count, of performances in a medium. ASCAP is able to count all
performances in a medium when the cost of collecting and processing accurate
performance information is a low enough percentage of the revenues generated
by that medium. Where a census survey is
impractical, we conduct a sample survey designed to be a statistically accurate representation
of performances in a medium. All times of the day, all days of the year,
every region of the country and all types and sizes of stations are
represented in the ASCAP sample surveys. The greater the fee a licensee pays
us, the more often that licensee is sampled. For example, a station that pays
us $20,000 in licensee fees is sampled twice as much as a station that pays
ASCAP only $10,000.
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